Porsche kicks off mall tour

Further evidence of Porsche’s embrace of the evolving buying experience will be making its way across the country over the next few months.

The luxury brand’s E-Performance campaign, launched in late November at Toronto’s Yorkdale mall, will make six stops across the country before wrapping up in mid-July.

The display aims to communicate the manufacturer’s pledge to offering vehicles that are both performance-oriented and highly efficient.

The sleek, white booth features a replica of the 919 Hybrid racecar that won this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans on one side, and a 2016 Cayenne S E-Hybrid on the other. The latter will include an interactive touchscreen display for shoppers to peruse and play with.

Alexander Pollich, Porsche Cars Canada chief, says the installation will be manned by dedicated product specialists who can help customers understand the vehicle and the brand’s green efforts.

He said with penetration levels for hybrids and electric vehicles still very low, the company wanted to show there is no contradiction between performance and efficiency.

They will also help develop leads for dealers responsible for the shopping mall’s corresponding market area.

“Product specialists will take down the details and submit it to a dealer,” Pollich says, noting that existing Porsche customers can ask their info be submitted to their current dealer.

Conquest leads will be allocated by postal code.

The Toronto installation at Yorkdale was sitting in Downtown Porsche’s market area but the automaker’s three GTA dealers – Oakville Porsche, Pfaff Porsche and Helen Ching-Kircher’s Downtown store – all supported the initiative.

It has been an interesting year for Porsche in terms of retail as the brand continues to look at adapting its shopping options for customers.

Michel Lauzon will be the first dealer in North America to open a Porsche City Showroom Concept sometime in 2016. The boutique location will be built in the Quartier DIX30 shopping centre on Montreal’s South Shore and operate as a satellite location to Lauzon’s yet-to-be-built Porsche Rive-Sud.

Porsche is also dipping its toe into the corporate store pool with word this fall it would build a new head office, training facility and corporate retail point in the northeast corner of Toronto.

“We are experimenting with all sorts of concepts at the moment. Shopping and buying behaviour changes… what works will be continued, what doesn’t work we will learn from,” he adds.

The E-Performance campaign will stop in Ottawa, Quebec City, Edmonton, Vancouver and Montreal. It will run for three full weeks and four weekends at each location.